


Moving On

by irinokat



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 01:10:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irinokat/pseuds/irinokat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a few weeks and while the Drift hasn't faded, Newt's spirits have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving On

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick note: there is some swearing and discussion of mental illness and disability here. I tried to go as gently about it as I could, but if it might be a trigger, feel free to go. This was another directionless piece of fluff I had hanging around in my head after I saw the movie the first time, like Just an Aftershock but a bit... angstier, I guess.

“Newton?” No answer. “Newton, there’s no point in hiding. I know you’re here.” Gottlieb paces into the lab, which seems strangely large now that Newt’s samples have been sent off. All that remain are some spare computer parts, desks, and tables that won’t be going with them. “Newton!” He can hear the waver in his own voice, worrying about the things he felt, the things he saw that were most certainly not his own thoughts.

“If you know I know you’re here, come find me.” The shout comes from the middle of Newt’s side of the room. They haven’t even bothered to strip the paint off the floor. Gottlieb taps it with his cane as he follows the impulses in his mind and the sound of Newt’s voice. How childish the stripes of paint seem now. How… foolish. “Or if you know I know you know I –”

“Stop trying to be clever before you choke on your own tongue.” Gottlieb finds him lying on the floor, staring up at the high ceiling, right on the spot where he managed to throw together a neural handshake mechanism out of spare parts and sheer willpower just a few weeks ago. It seems like a lifetime since that day. It’s felt like an eternity since the moment the clock stopped.

“That’s rich, coming from you.” Newt won’t even look at him. Just closes his eyes, forcing them shut like he was staring into the sun and figured out for the first time that it hurt. “Dr. Hermann I Never Shut My Fucking Trap Gottlieb.” Even when he hasn’t slept in days, the words tumble out of his mouth at a speed that Gottlieb still sometimes has trouble comprehending. He opens his eyes wide as if realizing what he just said. “Sorry. Sorry sorry sorry.” Words that never would have been said before the drift. Of course, he didn’t exactly need to say them now, either; at this proximity, the two feel each other’s emotions as if they were their own. Gottlieb can sense the self-hatred and despair rising from his companion like the smell of rotting flesh.

“I’m not used to seeing you this…” Gottlieb searches for a word, something he rarely has to do. Seeing his… friend? Colleague? Companion? this distraught is disturbing, and he wonders if the younger man’s… fervor is beginning to affect his own ability to think. “Still.”

“It’s either been this or trying to run five hundred laps around this whole goddamn place,” Newt says. “You realize how close they keep the kitchens to the jock bunks? Kinda disgusting.”

“That is a detail I would certainly prefer not to think about.” Gottlieb looks around. All the chairs seem to have disappeared. He leans hard on his cane and bends down, trying to figure out how to get himself on the floor without falling or banging into Newt.

Newt slowly pushes himself up onto his elbow and reaches out to grab Gottlieb’s leg. “Whoa, no, don’t.”

“Hm?”

“You just – you’ll – your leg –”

“Amazingly enough, Newton, I know what I can handle.” With a stern glare, Gottlieb attempts to seat himself again. This time Newt manages to sit all the way up and hold him. “Well,” he says, “At least I can look you in the eye now.”

Newt leans back, looking as if just that much effort exhausted him. It’s an odd contrast to his normal hyperactivity and the speed at which his mouth still moves. “Whatever, dude. Like you wanted to anyways.”

Gottlieb loses focus for a moment; something about the word “hyperactivity” triggers something deep within his memories but he can’t tell why. He mentally digs for a bit until suddenly Newt is on his feet, shoving him back against a table, forcing him to drop the cane with a loud clang on the floor. “That was not an invitation,” he hisses. Gottlieb’s not sure he’s ever seen this genuine amount of anger in the younger man.

With a start, Gottlieb realizes that the thoughts he was searching were not his own. He looks Newt over. “ADHD?” Newt stares him down. He realizes what a huge misstep he’s just made. “I’m sorry –”

“Don’t you even fucking try to diagnose me.” Newt grabs two fistfuls of Gottlieb’s sweater and pulls him down close, until their faces are mere centimeters away. Newt talks so fast, so hard, so angry that he doesn’t care about the spit flying into Gottlieb’s face. “So you were in my head for, what, five minutes? And we still have those… those lapses, so what. I don’t care. None of the doctors fixed it, none of the pills fixed it, one fucking drift isn’t –”

“I’m sorry.” Gottlieb places his hands gently over Newt’s. The rage roiling out of Newt is so violently hot it’s hard to think straight. He had hardly realized before the drift the depths of emotion that could roll through Newt on a whim, but this is something on a completely new level. Newt shakes, feeling like he’s going to vibrate into little pieces all over the floor, unable to calm down or stop himself. “It’s not… not just that, is it.”

“What?”

Gottlieb sighs. “Ever since we drifted, there’s been something… different.” He knows exactly what it is. He’s just not sure Newt does. For his part, Newt stares up defiantly at Gottlieb. “Something missing.”

“I get it, okay?” Newt snaps. “They’re gone. We got to see inside their minds, I got to see how they tick, I’m hooked into a freaking hive-brain of these gigantic, fascinating – ugh, I don’t know!” He releases Gottlieb to wave his hands in the air, unable to find a gesture that’s enough to express his frustration. Nothing seems to be enough anymore. “And now they’re gone, they’re gone and I should be HAPPY, everyone’s celebrating, they won’t kill anyone, they won’t try to kill me –” His hands drop to his sides, limp. He tries to keep talking but is interrupted by his own sobbing.

Gottlieb pulls him into his arms, resting his chin on the shorter man’s head. Newt leans into him, trying to hide his tears. Gottlieb’s sympathy trickles through him like cold spring rain. It may not be as heavy for Gottlieb as it is for Newt, but the void is still there. You can’t touch on a consciousness like that without feeling something, he figures. He starts to say, “It’ll be…” and then trails off, unsure. It will probably be alright for most of the world, the people who only knew fear of the beasts.

It might never be alright for the one person who respected them, the one who had his wildest dream come true only for it to be ripped away an hour later.

Newt’s hands find their way around Gottlieb’s back, clinging to him for dear life. Gottlieb isn’t used to the physical attention, and isn’t quite sure he likes it, but today it works. He kisses Newt’s forehead. If Newt is surprised, everything else in him covers it up. The two stand together, letting the whirlwind of their shared feelings rip through them, both the sweetest and the most bewildering sensation at the same time.

Eventually Newt lets go, feeling phantom pains in his own leg as he realizes just how stiff Gottlieb must be. He drops to the floor and picks up the cane, starting to offer it to the older man. Instead, Gottlieb slings his arm over Newt’s shoulder. “You’re not the only one hurting,” he mumbles into Newt’s ear.

Newt silently wraps his arm around his partner’s back. They hobble awkwardly towards the door. Gottlieb takes the cane back as he ventures into the hallway, walking slowly to let Newt catch up.

Newt turns and looks back one last time at the near-empty room before he shuts the door and locks it. This will always be part of the hole inside him, now larger than it was before. But now he has things to do, people to see. He catches up with Gottlieb and pats him on the back. This may not be the future he had imagined, if he had imagined one at all… but it’s the future he’s got.


End file.
